Mind Within Matter
by The Oddity
Summary: There is a feeling deep inside of me that enjoys being within your presence. I cannot describe it, it just is. Shoujo ai, ClaesTriela.


**MIND WITHIN MATTER**

You and I, we're opposites.

You, with blonde hair and blue eyes and dark skin, preferring (of all things) men's clothing as your choice of attire; and I, with dark hair and dark eyes, dressing fairly effeminately, yet never overtly so, with my unrevealing turtlenecks, smocks, and dark leggings. In some instances, you told me that I "looked like a nun"; I assured you the same for your clothes and you snorted somewhat derisively.

There would be days like these where I marveled at our outward differences. I noticed you scarcely went a single day without putting your hair up in those childish pigtails upon waking from bed, and there was scarcely a day where I did anything with my own, aside from my hairclips. Those had become part of my identity; I could assume the same of your pigtails.

However infantine they might be.

Inwards, we might as well have been the difference between night and day; I was quiet and unassuming. You were witty and sharp-tongued, but seemed almost inconceivably motherly, especially when presented with Henrietta and Rico.

Being the eldest of the lot, I supposed you held that right.

But I digress.

My point being — we are different. Antithetic. Mismatched individuals who, at some point or another, ended up sharing a dormitory together. We are also inconsistently at odds with one another; perhaps it comes with the territory, being roommates. Two people cannot always be expected to live harmoniously together. Not even Henrietta and Rico, however sisterly they treat one another.

Which begs the question, my trenchant opposite — what are _we_?

We certainly are not sisters.

Does this mean we're friends?

I'd ask you, but I would be at risk of sounding idiosyncratic. After all, I am cold and uncaring Claes — the loner who hates people and would rather face death than 'make friends'.

Yet, there is a feeling deep inside of me that enjoys being within your presence. I cannot describe it; it just _is_.

And with my kind of vocabulary, I appraise this to be incogitable and adverse, and not at all apropos to the status of_ mia vita_.

Sometimes, I am glad I don't keep a diary. I believe thoughts are secrets, secrets that should be locked away inside one's mind, and only you as the keeper of the key. Thoughts are not meant to be purveyed at another's leisure, and there is no point in writing them down to keep unless you will show them to someone.

My thoughts are often small and meaningless, escaping my hands like tiny beads of white sand on beaches far away. The things I do not deem important and worthy, I discard — as you should know well by now.

The glasses, for example.

You asked me once, why do I wear these if I don't need them? They only seemed frivolous and unnecessary. I did not answer you and you eventually figured it out on your own, as I knew you would.

I am not a frivolous individual. Not usually, anyway.

So why, should I decide to deem you so noteworthy within the confines of my learned, conscious mind?

Of course you aren't an easy person to overlook. Hardly.

But is that really it?

Painting did not ease these quarrelsome inquiries that repeatedly plagued my mind during particularly droll moments.

Occasionally, and very occasionally, I found myself painting a portrait of you. Not on purpose, of course, yet it only exceeded in amplifying my thoughts of you to a tenfold. I had to retreat to somewhere else other than our dormitory, so I set off for that spacious room where my grand piano sat.

It was a beautiful instrument; Bartolomeo Cristofori and all whom refined this _meraviglioso_ invention after him were to thank for that. It was also calming for me — when I found my conscious assaulted by thoughts of you, or my amusing dreams of that unknown stranger, I would play the piano to drown out my musings with its powerful and compelling tone that the residents of the Social Welfare Agency probably knew all-too well.

This was my remedy during daylight hours — at night, I settled for a good book, something less noisy and less likely to wake everyone up.

I found it endlessly fascinating, however, that this strange man occupied my dreams, whereas you occupied my conscious thoughts. Perhaps it stems from that internal desire to be near you constantly, as if I couldn't get enough of you.

Outwardly, I expressed no secret desire to see, talk, or hear you. I believe because of this you did not think much of me.

A simple solution would have been to express myself more fully to the people around me; yet I am naturally withdrawn in my shell. Any attempts I have ever made to showcase my internal feelings came out awkwardly and forced. Painting, perhaps, was one thing that helped me with this difficulty I seemed to have, but even then, I was troubled by the mysterious whereabouts of my feelings towards you that always compelled my fingers to absently start drawing the figure of you.

I once believed I knew all of the secret workings of _mia cuore_. It seems now that I was foolish to ever think so.


End file.
